NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans 346-bed low-barrier homeless shelter on Gravier Street is the city’s most ambitious effort to ease the persistent problem of people living on the street.
But what goes on inside the shelter has largely been kept out of public view since it opened to much fanfare in 2018. That changed on March 28, when police say a resident cut two other residents in a knife attack, only to be tased by police and shot by an on-duty security guard.
Employees and homeless residents said they weren’t surprised by the violence. They say conditions that led to the violence have been simmering inside the shelter for years.
One frequent resident put it bluntly: “I don't feel safe.”
Another resident shared a similar opinion, “I never thought that I'd be one to say anything bad about a shelter, you know, because of the situation that I'm in, but it's been a horrible experience.”
Under the low-barrier model, the city sanctuary in the former Veteran’s Administration Hospital doesn't provide drug and alcohol treatment, or mental health services, the primary reasons that most residents are homeless in the first place.
“There's drug abuse,” another resident said. “And there’s issues, like mental health issues. They don't have the necessary resources to handle drug counseling.”
At a minimum, though, the shelter is supposed to be a safe haven. The entrance has a metal detector to keep out weapons. There's a strict policy against alcohol and illegal drugs.
But former employees, speaking on a condition of anonymity, say all those things are commonplace.
“I have found makeshift knives. I have found box cutters. I found scissors. I found switchblades. Hammers,” one ex-employee said.
When asked about the effectiveness of a metal detector and security guards, the employee answered, “We have all that, but still happens…Security not doing their job. Night staff sleeps.”
The other former worker said some residents sneak in weapons by giving them to wheelchair-bound residents, who routinely set off the metal detectors but usually aren’t checked more closely.
Drugs are even more difficult to keep out. The sidewalk outside the shelter is littered with hypodermic needles. Employees say the same drug habits make their way inside.
“Finding pieces of crack in the bathroom. On guests. Finding drug lines in the bathroom,” one former employee said.
The other added, “Basically because you have drug dealers in there. You have people who sell drugs in there.”
The city and homeless advocacy groups estimate that there are 1,400 homeless people in the city, meaning that about a quarter of that population passes through the low-barrier shelter at any given time.
Staff, as well as residents, say all the problems on the street infiltrate the shelter.
That includes low-level crime, like dealing in stolen goods.
“Household supplies and come back and stealing purses, hats, sunglasses, shirts, basically anything that they feel that they can get monetary value out of,” one of the former workers said.
Instead of discouraging the theft, insiders say some of the employees participate.
“They have whatever they went and took from wherever they took it from. And most staff buys it. We buy it,” the other worker said.
A regular resident who called himself Ronnie said trading in shoplifting items happens inside the shelter all the time, and the low-paid employees are among the buyers.
“They do that all the time,” he said. “Buying stolen goods.”
While those on the inside say many employees are dedicated to doing the right thing, they also say an expansion in 2022 from 100 beds to more the current 346 was too much, too fast.
“When expansion happened, we didn't have enough staff at the time to maintain and manage that amount of people,” said Jerome Williams, a former employee who now works at the adjoining Traveler’s Aid Society, a group that helps find housing for the unhoused. “We’re still operating with the same amount of people we had when it was 100.”
The city's divorce from the previous operator of the shelter, Start Corporation, was ugly.
The company said the city fell months behind on payments, while the city began questioning staffing and services. Now, a new operator, Odyssey House, is set to take over in June under a contract that more than doubled from $3 million a year to about $6 million after Odyssey emerged as the lone bidder.
Start Corp. did not return calls for comment. A representative of Odyssey House said the non-profit couldn’t comment until the contract with the city is finalized.
The city also declined to comment, but here's what the City's Homeless Services Director, Nathaniel Fields, said directly after the violent outburst two weeks ago.
“The mayor and chief of staff have more than recently reached out to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to bring the shelter up to par,” Fields said in an impromptu press briefing after the March 28 violence that sent all three residents to the hospital, where they were reported to be in stable condition.
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